No Excuse

Roman Polanksi, director of Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown was arrested in Zurich over the weekend. Polanksi escaped police custody following a psychiatric evaluation in 1977 after pleading guilty to drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13 year old girl. The actual charge was “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.”

The international community is aghast:

The Swiss media has rounded on the authorities.

“Switzerland let a guest walk into a nasty trap. We should be ashamed,” said tabloid newspaper, Blick.

Daily paper Le Temps said Switzerland had “shocked film buffs and friends of the arts with its kindly and efficient co-operation with US justice. It has angered Poland and France”.

Other responses have been anger over the age of the crime, 32 years ago. Some say that Polanski has suffered enough, due to the loss of his mother at the Auschwitz concentration camp and the death of his wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Manson family. Others claim he is only the subject of interest because of his fame; any other child rapist would simply be forgotten by now.

These “people” making excuses for Polanski make me sick.

Lots of people lost their loved ones to heinous crimes without becoming miscreants or child molesters. It hardly mitigates anything.

The age of the crime is irrelevant. Roman Polanski raped and sodomized a thriteen year old girl after giving her Champagne and quaaludes. He committed an egregious and destructive crime against a child.

This isn’t petty thievery or securities fraud. It’s not vandalism or tax evasion. He didn’t download too many mp3s illegally.

This man violated a little girl. He made a plea deal to get a lighter sentence, then ran from justice.

There is no excuse. There is no mitigation. There is no reasoning. No justification. No vindication nor extenuation.

Polanski committed an act of perversion that cannot be defended. Those making excuses for him should not only be ashamed, they should be disgusted with themselves.